That Wine’s Gonna Be a Star!!
With the success of the movie Sideways in bringing new consumers to wine, will more wineries begin to participate in Product Placement Marketing? I think so.
The problem with marketing via product placement is the same with using media relations: it’s not always easy to quantify the impact of having your wine discussed in articles. It’s equally difficult, in most cases, to gauge the impact of having your product spontaneously appear in a move. Surely some placements are better, such as when your product is part of the plot. But this is rare.
Clos Du Val winery in Napa is one winery that has used product placement marketing. According to Brooke Correll, Clos Du Val’s VP of Marketing, the winery spends about $5000 per month to engage a product placement firm to get their wines in front of set designers and propmasters for TV and films. Add to this over 200 cases per year sent out for product placement purposes. You are looking at over $100,000 per year in fees and products to carryout this program.
(There is a good story on Clos Du Val’s efforts here)
Clos Du Val has seen its wines show up more than 100 films and television shows, including The Sopranos and the movie 21 Grams. And sales were up after they begin this product placement strategy according to Correll.
Product placement has been increasing over the past couple years. When Tivo’s Digital Video recorder began to take off early last year, there was a great deal of discussion among advertisers and marketers that product placement would naturally increase as a strategy to overcome those who were skipping past commercials with their Tivo remote in hand. There is no reason to think the practice won’t continue to increase.
Wineries will get into the game. But clearly it’s not a cheap game to enter. Don’t expect to see that small, 2000 case winery showing up in lots of movies. But look for lots of Gallo wines and those of the other big boys.
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